“I lived for years in a relationship that harmed me more than a punch or kick ever could have. I lived with emotional and mental abuse for years.

I was told all the time how I wasn’t good enough, how no one else would ever or could ever love me because I was a terrible person. I was told how ugly and fat I was (back when I weighed 125 pounds), how I was a horrible wife and mother. I lived with hearing the most horrible things on a daily basis.

I put on a happy face and pretended everything was fine to the outside world. I was scared all the time.

We would go somewhere with other people and if I didn’t act like everything was fine I knew there would be hell to pay when we got home. If I said something wrong he would give me a look or say something that no one else understood but I knew… I knew when I got home I would be told how stupid I was and how I embarrassed him. That I was an embarrassment. It took years for those scars to heal somewhat.

There are still times today that something will happen and I will go right back to that time and the feelings of incompetence, ugliness and fear.

After I left I put on a happy face, I put on a front that everything was fine, no one saw how I felt like a failure, I felt completely incompetent, I felt like I was always wrong, I felt like I was not doing right by my kids.

Today I know I am capable, that my kids are ok and doing well and that I can be loved and deserve love. I am lucky I found someone to spend my life with that understands I have scars because he has some too.

I don’t talk a lot about what happened back then. Only a few people truly know what I went through during those years. I am so grateful for my kids because without them I wouldn’t have ever left I honestly probably wouldn’t be alive today. I couldn’t let them grow up thinking it was ok to be treated that way.

If you are in an abusive relationship get out. Please get help and get out.”

| Janelle, Missouri, pictured |

[Photo Credit: Dana Shore]

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